Composers write rests. Architects design empty rooms. Almost nobody plans the silence in a conversation. This episode is about the interval as material rather than as gap.

In this episode

  • Cage’s 4′33″, and why it is not a joke
  • The Japanese concept of ma — negative space as a positive element
  • Why the pause before an answer carries more than the answer
The rest is not the absence of the note. It is part of the phrase.

Full transcript below. Runs about forty-six minutes.